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Zone or no zone? What do you think....


Go!

No zone . Teach them to play Man . Move their feet , do not reach . cut off the dribble drive . Do this and adapting to a zone will be easy . Starting these kids out with a man will put them a head of the curve . The last few years the talent level has really increased and the 3 point shooting has been off the scale . Tight Man and bodying up makes good teams great teams . I hate it when I see 12 to 14 year old in a sagging Zone.

No zone. You can always teach junior high/high school kids how to play zone, harder to get them used to playing man-to-man when they haven't done it much.

Problem though is everyone starts out youth ball season playing man, but as soon as tourneys (trophy season) roll around, everyone sells out and starts playing zone to win (most kids cant consistently shoot from outside until about 6th grade, plus don't have to sub best players out as often). We fell into this trap but eventually figured out that man-to-man was more effective for our team b/c it got them playing with energy and most teams we faced hadn't seen man defense for weeks. Of course we had depth and wasn't worried about having to sub players out.*

Appreciate the input. Have always hated zone D in youth league bball. But I started to think I was the only one who thinks this way after this past seasons youth tournaments. Another question, how do you guys feel about set plays? I've seen a lot of the old, get the ball to the best player and screen play a million times.

BackTap wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2019 12:28 pm Appreciate the input. Have always hated zone D in youth league bball. But I started to think I was the only one who thinks this way after this past seasons youth tournaments. Another question, how do you guys feel about set plays? I've seen a lot of the old, get the ball to the best player and screen play a million times.

A good structured offense with movement away from the ball and yes set plays are ok as long as it's in the flow . To many times plays are just like you said are run around one player . IMO this throttles down the learning progress for the remaining players . Youth coaches that teach fundamentals and promotes man D will structure offensive sets if they think their players can grasp that style . I really like seeing youth teams that move the ball and are well coached and I have seen some lately that are above the curve . Hats off to the Youth COACHES that DOES it RIGHT.

Just teach them offense and defensive fundamentals. You play to win but teaching at that age is priceless !